High Queen
by Circe le Fey
Summary: The third one-shot in my series, takes place about eight months before the movie. With the birth of Toby, Sarah is more estranged from her family than ever, retreatig farther into the Labyrinth, while Jareth waits for her to grow up. Read and review!


Author's Note: This is the third one-shot, sequel to Finding the Labyrinth, and King of Dreams, set roughly eight months before the movie, and about three years before my ongoing fic, Stone Tears, the next chapter of which, by the way, should be out shortly. Read and Review!

Circe le Fey

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The owl was sitting so still it almost seemed carved of stone. The boy sitting at the next desk over was sitting so still, and had such a hollow expression that he could have been carved of wood. Even the teacher, poised over her papers, seemed to have been carved of granite, and as far as anyone could tell, the clock appeared to have gone completely still as well. And Sarah Williams was convinced that she had turned to cold marble out of sheer boredom. Slowly she let her eyes creep back to the window, where the owl was sitting, and then back to the clock, and then to the owl again. Even the tiny flicking back and forth of her eyes seemed like such a huge movement, that she half expected the teacher to get angry at her. As it was, no one noticed. Sarah sighed, scratched behind her ear, and crossed her legs. Now that she had moved, she realized that the entire class was moving. Sighing, making noises, scratching and rubbing at themselves, shifting positions, even the pencil in the teacher's hand was swaying ever so slightly. Only the owl, perched outside the class room window, the only free being in sight, could not be accused of even the tiniest movement.

Sarah pushed the quiz she had completed five minutes early even farther away from her, until it was half off of the desk. She was tempted to excuse herself to use the bathroom, but even in the first two weeks of high school, she had used the bathroom so much that she imagined it was only a matter of time before she had the school nurse inquiring if there was something wrong with her drinking water. Ha, wouldn't that kill Irene, someone worried about whether something to do with her was suitably sanitary. Sarah's step-mother had always been a clean freak, but since the birth of Sarah's baby half-brother, cleanliness had become Irene's obsession. It had gotten to the point where she had decided that the entire attic had to be emptied, and then partially demolished, in an attempt to massacre some form of harmless mold that might or might not have been massing in the vents. And since the attic was only full of things that happened to have belonged to Sarah's mother, there wasn't anything that could possibly be worth keeping, was there? Fortunately, Sarah's father had put his foot down. He had never been a pack-rat, only rarely keeping things for sentimental reasons, and even if he did they were usually still useful. But somehow he had never been able to get rid of Linda's things. Just like he had never been quite willing to admit that she had left. Or that she had ever lived with him at all.

Now that Sarah was finally immersed in her own thoughts, the bell rang, she jumped, and several people around her laughed. It was something she was perfectly used to, getting laughed at, but she still directed a fierce glare at the offender nearest to her, and then looked back up in time to see the owl take off. She was about to do the same.

Sarah never rode the bus home, preferring the long, winding walk, with plenty of time to herself, to read or recite things, than the dirty, smelly bus with it's torn seats, and creepy driver. She usually cut across the park, sometimes even stopping to sit down by the pond. This time she paused to pull the Labyrinth out of her backpack. As she touched it, she felt the familiar thrill, that seemed to come as much from the book as from her. She knew that it wasn't normal, not even remotely, to be so incredibly wrapped up in a book, but it didn't bother her. The Labyrinth was her chance to escape from everything, from a step-mother she shared absolutely nothing with, from a mother who had abandoned her, from a father who seemed to be afraid to be too attached to her, maybe because she reminded him too much of her mother. It gave her life a passion and mystery that it lacked, at least in her eyes.

It was a simple fact of Sarah's life that no one took much of an interest in her. Her mother had never been able to truly devote herself to Sarah, not as much due to a lack of affection as to her lack of sanity. Linda Williams had been perpetually on the edge of a nervous breakdown, by nature as beautiful and as breakable as a crystal ornament, she had married and had Sarah too young, and left because it seemed like a better solution than killing herself.

It had taken Sarah's father a long, long time to adjust himself losing his wife, completely oblivious that he had never really had her in the first place. It had changed his way of seeing Sarah though. She had the same imagination, the same passions, as his wife, and it frightened him, seeing the exact traits that had first attracted him to Linda, and then taken her from him.

Irene was much more on his level. There was nothing untouchable about her, no part of her practical, down-to-earth world that she couldn't share with him, that he couldn't understand. Their marriage was balanced and perfectly equal, the polar opposite of his relationship with Linda. And Irene was even more unreceptive to Sarah than her husband.

The birth of Toby had only made things worse. Now, more than ever, Sarah relied upon the imagined presence of the Goblin King, it gave her someone to turn to, even if he didn't truly exist, he was better than nothing. Better than what she had.

As a child, Sarah had imagined the day when he would come for her, whisk her away her father and step-mother, and take her somewhere magical, somewhere powerful, where for the first time, she would experience what it was like to have someone completely and entirely obsessed with her. Even now, she could imagine it, being lifted above everyone, High Queen of the Labyrinth, of the world of dreams. It would take many years, and a real meeting with the Goblin King, to make her realize that wherever you were, whatever position you were in, no one could possibly rescue you, if you didn't rescue yourself first. And it would be just as long before she would realize the frightening, destructive power of true obsession.

Jareth himself was already learning the dangers of growing so absorbed in some one. This was a mortal, he reminded himself, a girl born of the aboveground, and just a child, at that, he reminded himself. But Sarah was fourteen now, and as she grew up, Jareth could feel his wait coming to an end, she was getting older, and instead of distancing herself from the Labyrinth, it seemed to be constantly on her mind, even more than it had when she was younger.

And as Sarah felt herself becoming more and more one with the Labyrinth, the more Jareth was feeling severed from it. For hundreds of years, ever since the realm had begun, who knows how, perhaps, as some said, with the wish of an unwanted child, Jareth's world had consisted of little more than running the labyrinth, and ruling the inhabitants, living in a world of dreams, literally. Until that morning when he had heard her voice. And then, everything had changed.

Now, even more as she grew older, becoming exactly what he knew she would, his mind was full of how he could bring her to the labyrinth. She was still too young, yes, but soon, in what was almost a blink of an eye for him, he would be able to bring her here. Where she belonged.

In the world above, Sarah was reading from the book again: _"for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great" _if she came to him, she could have anything she wanted. _"You have no power over me"_

Jareth had no idea what a fight he had ahead of him.

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If you liked this, check out my other one-shots, and Stone Tears. Please Read and Review!!

Circe le Fey


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